Experiment No 10 Musical tools for co-creation with non-humans
On this one, I do a performance for non-human audience including the findings from the previous experiments 8 and 9. I focus on find a balance between the non-humans leading musically and me doing some proposals, and I explore my research sub ques Later, I will listen again for observing the balance of sounds of the performers.
Because it was raining I could not filmed it, but I managed to record the audio.
Analysis from the experiment 9 Participative observation with non-humans
The aim with this experiment is to observe the reactions of the living non-humans, with the birds I will observe their singing.
In the first case (fragment #1), I did imitations by whistling from a singing bird. It seems that the bird feel some curiosity for my sound, and it keeps repeating the motive, sometimes with a small variation, as the bird makes it shorter, or longer. I also noticed that there are some birds in a far distance also singing, but different songs, not the same.
In fragment #2, I recorded high notes played in the saxophone. It seems like the birds doesn't feel confortable with those sounds and go to other place. The birds around went to a different place when I was doing those sounds. However this is a subjective assumption. They could perceive my sound as a very strange subject, or even a territory issue. As cited by B. Kreuse in his book The great animal orchestra, the birds can use their singing skills for attracting a partner, claiming territory, to alert danger or socializing.
In fragment #3, I recorded low notes in the saxophone. It is difficult to see or follow the reaction of the birds and mostly I trust on what I hear because there are mostly on the top of the very tall trees. However, when I do short notes in the beginning the rhytmic reactions of some bird seems like a musical game to me.
In fragment #4, I really joined the rhythmic sing from a bird, and it was very interesting. It is a challengue for me to be that flexible and sensitive from their music, and probably I would need a biologist expert on birds to help me understand what is happening with our musical communication. This makes me think on David Rothenberg, a musician that has been co-creating music with animals and sounds of the nature for more than 20 years, and he said in an interview on Youtube that it is not important to try to understand or translate the songs of the birds, but the most important is to play with them, and he has experienced that the animals also react in very dynamic and creative ways.
I reflect on the recordings and realize: There are sounds with undertemined pitch as the rain sound, or the wind touching the leaves of the trees (Geophonic, term by Kreuse). Also, I noticed that the birds sings with trend to have a tonal center close to the note A, for some reason.
Tools for co-create with non-humans:
-Listening first.
-Imitations of melodies
-Accompainment or counter chant of their melodies. Like long notes, descending in a similar proportion of intervals that they are using
-Create rhythmic textures when they repeat an insistent motive.
